from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. An aromatic powder used in Italy for making chocolate.

n. Maize (or, more rarely, wheat) dried, ground, and sometimes mixed with the flour of mesquitbeans, which are quite sweet: used somewhat extensively as an article of food on the borders of Mexico and California.

“With a little pinole and dried beef,” the governor told Crook, Mexicans could “travel all over the country without pack mules…; they could go inside an Apache and turn him wrong side out in no time at all.”

My servant obtained, with some difficulty, from the Indians at the rancho, a pint-cup of _pinole_, or parched corn-meal, and a quart or two of wheat, which, being boiled, furnished some variety in our viands at supper, fresh beef having been our only subsistence since the commencement of the march from San Juan.